French Country · Encyclopedia · Copper
Firedog with pot rest
A tall firedog with supports designed to hold a pot or a handled kettle, the coquemar, beside the fire so hot water was always at hand.
French: chenet landier · Hearth iron
At a glance
- Material: iron
- Use: supporting logs and holding pots
- Partner object: the coquemar
- Setting: the open hearth
What it is
Firedogs, or andirons, support the logs in an open fireplace. The landier is a tall version with hooks or a cresset at the top on which a pot or kettle could rest near the flames.
Hot water at the hearth
The book pairs it with the coquemar, a handled kettle kept permanently warm. Together they ensured the household always had hot water.
Collecting and using it
Landiers are heavy; check that welds or forge joints are sound and that the feet are original. A pair is more desirable than a single.
Set in a fireplace, even unused, a pair of tall landiers gives an authentic farmhouse look.
Source: Les Trésors de France: vieux métiers et objets d'autrefois (Éditions Rustica, Détours en France collection, 1995), pp. 138–142, with general background on the object. The book was published in 1995, so workshops, people and figures are described as they were then. Regional names and dates are given as the book records them; a style or a region of origin does not by itself date an individual piece.